Cornbread is a minefield of differing opinions on what should and shouldn’t be added. Some of the most hotly contested issues include lard vs. butter, yellow vs. white cornmeal, and the amount of sugar to add. Which side of the debate you fall on depends largely on where you’re from. Folks living in southern states pejoratively refer to the bread from the north as “Yankee Cornbread”, likening it to sweet yellow cake. Then you have the half of the country living above the Mason-Dixon line who consider southern cornbread pale, greasy and bland. But no matter where you’re from, one thing I think we can all agree on is that cornbread should taste like corn. So with that in mind, my goal was to make a cornbread that lives up to its name. Then, you can make adjustments and substitutions to to suit your regional tastes. Because cornbread made with 100% cornmeal tends to be dry crumbly and dense, most cornbread recipes call for a half and half mixture of cornmeal to all-purpose flour. This gives the bread a good texture, but it comes at the cost of diluting the corn flavor. To give the flavor a boost, I used a mixture of cornmeal and masa harina (Mexican nixtamalized corn flour), with just enough all-purpose flour to help the bread rise. For a triple dose of corn, I also added some fresh sweet corn to the batter, which adds a nice crisp texture, mellow sweetness and extra corn flavor. Made in a cast iron skillet, you get a beautifully golden brown crust on the outside with crunchy, buttery crust along the rim of the pan. Serve this cornbread with my quick chili or my chipotle chicken chili.
📖 Recipe
